(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. posted a wider third-quarter loss as revenue tumbled.
(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. posted a wider third-quarter loss as revenue tumbled.
The Las Vegas-based miner had a loss of $75.4 million, or 65 cents a share, compared with $22.2 million or 22 cents, in the year-earlier prior period. Revenue fell to $12.6 million from $51.7 million. Lower production due to operational issues and Bitcoin prices declines are among the biggest reasons for the loss, Marathon said in a statement Tuesday.
The company continues to deploy mining machines whereas other miners have ceased expansions due to liquidity issues. The firm plugged in 32,000 rigs in October, bringing the number of its operating machines to about 69,000 in total, according to the firm’s operational update.
Marathon has taken an “asset-light” approach to expand its mining operations in which the firm spends most of its money on buying rigs and put them in third-party hosting sites to run its machines. That is opposed to the vertically integrated miners that have borrowed heavily to pay hefty overhead costs to build out their own Bitcoin mining infrastructure such as data centers and transforms.
Major Bitcoin miners Core Scientific Inc. and Argo Blockchain PLC are struggling to stay afloat as they complete the constructions of their mining sites. Those miners have sold off their coin reserves and planned to sell new shares to raise cash. Marathon has been one of the few miners that have not sold mined coins. Its Bitcoin holdings rose to 11,285 last month, with 3,464 in unrestricted coins, according to the update. The firm has $52.1 million cash as of the end of October, down from $55.3 million in the prior month.
Marathon faced multiple delays to energize their 40,000 installed mining machines in a 280-megawatt facility hosted by Compute North due to regulatory issues earlier this year. Compute North was able to start a portion of the machines in August. While the host filed for bankruptcy in September, Marathon claimed its operations remain unaffected in its update.
Shares of Marathon fell about 1% in trading after the close of regular markets. The stock has tumbled 70% this year.
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